Kris Attfield is the author of three books: The Book of Finch, Letters to Whomever, The Eagle's Sore: A Novella and Pfhonge, The Inter-Continental Brink of Madness, Air Defence, Doorless Darts and Blaine Bananatree - a bunch of video games.

Friday, March 28, 2014

An Unattainable Requirement

I've been thinking for a while about how proved or disproved the LDS church is and how this relates to my personal life.

The LDS church REQUIRES its youth to not or never masturbate.

In my Youth - I could never avoid serious strong urges and feelings that inevitably led to masturbation.

Certain church leaders or members teach that you MUST resist any urges to engage in any form of sexual activity.

The problem for me is that those feelings are so strong that if you never give in to the urge --- well, you face the problem of how to deal with consistent and persistent feelings - very strong feelings -- feelings so strong it can be difficult to concentrate on anything. It'll drive you mad.

Anyway, the only reason I made my deal with God where in exchange for my exaltation I would serve God for the rest of my life was to save me from the masturbation problem that developed in my life.

That's right - I made a deal so I could get married, be perfect, essentially be saved from the masturbation problem - by serving God for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, the church didn't let me marry (as they were supposed to) and God has never bothered to completely save me from masturbation --- so I see no real point in giving any of this service I would have given.

I offered my whole life in service, and God and the church did squat to help me --- therefore I need not serve.

Is the church proved or disproved?

There is a LOT of evidence against the church --- in fact, in so many ways I don't care to deal with LDS Mormonism.

The only evidence FOR the church that I can think of right now are A) The patriarch seemed to know of my deal with God and put it in my blessing. B) The patriarchal blessing could have potentially come true, if only certain church people didn't deliberately undermine it. C) I saw a vision when I got the blessing and D) I could pray to God and apparently get responses from General Authorities giving talks, although this may have just been God telling me what the talks were before they were given.

So, there are so many ways in which LDS mormonism doesn't work. There are some ways in which it seemed plausible, mostly pertaining to the Patriarch or other high-ranking church leaders, but all of that comes to nothing because local leaders couldn't be bothered to actually allow my blessings to come true.

The church required something that was pretty much impossible for me to obey. Maybe they were punishing me for it --- but that's a little sad because the rule is commonly broken by almost everybody, and nobody is going to heaven if you have to enforce it so strictly.